


Counterpart

by melonlordnation



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Counterpart, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Found Family, Zutara Week 2020, mom!tara/dad!ko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25546114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonlordnation/pseuds/melonlordnation
Summary: Parenting is hard. Co-parenting is harder. Especially when you grew up mostly with only one parent, you’re not really parents, and your unofficial “daughter” is Toph Beifong.Circa Ember Island. A series of one-shots for Zutara Week 2020, all for day 2: Counterpart.
Relationships: Zuko/Katara, Zutara - Relationship
Comments: 23
Kudos: 151





	1. Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyyyy :) This is my first time participating in ZW and my first post on AO3! 
> 
> Chapter Summary: Toph isn’t feeling well and refuses to let Katara try to help her. Zuko tries his hand at helping take care of her.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toph isn’t feeling well and refuses Katara’s help. Zuko gives it a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is my first time doing ZW and my first post on AO3, so I’m super excited. Let me know what you think!
> 
> -Robin

Zuko was always the first one awake. Except for today. He quietly padded down the hallway of his family’s home in Ember Island, headed toward the kitchen. As he got closer, he heard a “shh,” and when he rounded the corner to the living room, he saw Katara sitting next to Toph, who was lying on the floor. Both were already dressed for the day, like him, and apparently had been having a tense conversation.

“Am I interrupting something?” Zuko asked quietly. He cleared his throat, trying to shake the remnants of sleep from his voice.

“No,” Toph said quickly.

“I didn’t think you would be up this early.”

“She’s not,” Katara interrupted. “She’s up late.”

That explained why Toph was still dressed. She’d never changed from the night before.

“I told you, I don’t feel good!” Toph huffed and crossed her arms over her stomach.

Katara gently put a hand on Toph’s shoulder. “You should have said something as soon as you started feeling bad!”

She was right, of course. Toph hadn’t mentioned feeling sick the previous night. Zuko walked past the girls and went into the kitchen, trying to drown out their conversation. The younger girl was irritable, probably from missing hours of sleep, if Zuko had to guess. Katara’s doting wasn’t helping.

“I could have tried to help you sooner.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not. Toph, I can heal you.”

“I don’t want you to touch my stomach. Your hands are freezing.”

“Katara.”

Zuko’s voice pulled Katara’s gaze away from Toph. He didn’t turn to face her; he was digging in a cabinet. Katara left Toph’s side and stood behind Zuko, waiting on him to turn to her. He crooked his finger in a “come here” motion. Katara rolled her eyes and stood at his side, facing away from Toph.

“Has she eaten anything?” He asked quietly.

“I don’t think so,” she answered. “When that kind of pain hits, the first day is typically agony, and then you get hungry. She’s still on the agony part. I made her food two hours ago, and she took two bites. And she won’t even try to go to sleep. It could be over, but she won’t let me touch her or attempt to sleep through it.”

Oh. That’s why she was cranky.

Zuko handed Katara a rag. “Get this wet.”

Katara opened her mouth to protest, because Toph’s well-being was more important than wiping down the counters, but the side-eye he gave her convinced her to just do it. She bent water from the skin at her side, which she’d had on standby to heal Toph before she’d been rejected.

Zuko grabbed the rag from her, took a break from rummaging in the cabinet to hold it for a moment, and then handed it back. “Bring this to her.”

The damp rag was warm in her hands. Katara blinked, surprised at the thoughtful gesture, and walked it over to Toph, who gratefully accepted it. Katara went back into the kitchen and stood by Zuko’s side again. She adopted the same low tone they’d used before.

“Where’d you learn that?”

Zuko felt his cheeks heat up. “My sister did it for Mai once, a few years ago. I didn’t know why, but believe me, I learned.”

He pulled out a teapot and set it on top of the stove. Katara filled it with water. She watched Zuko drop in a tea bag and set a small spark underneath the pot to start boiling the water.

“What kind is it?”

“Chamomile.”

“Will it make her feel better?”

“It’ll make her sleepy.”

Katara smiled. “Perfect.”

“What are you whispering about?” Toph called from her spot on the living room floor.

“Oh, nothing,” Katara said over her shoulder. When she turned back, her arm brushed Zuko’s. They both froze.

“How long has she been laying there?” He asked.

The realization hit Katara. “As far as I know, since dinner ended.”

“Should she try to move?”

Katara was asking herself the same thing. She didn’t know if it was more awkward to pull away from where they were still touching or to stay there.

“Just to stretch her legs or something?”

She hadn’t answered his question.

“Probably. Good luck convincing her to get up, though.”

They stood there in silence, watching steam slowly make its way out of the teapot. Finally it was hot enough to drink, and Zuko moved it from the hot stove.

Zuko cleared his throat again. “Toph, I have a problem only you can help me with.”

Katara quirked an eyebrow at him. He quirked his back.

“What?” They heard Toph reply.

“See, the tea-”

“I can’t.”

Zuko didn’t miss a beat. “The tea is ready, so we need to bring the teapot and some cups into the living room. There are three of us, but I only have two hands. And honey’s grabbing the Katara.”

His words hung in the air. Zuko realized what he’d said. Even without looking, he knew there was a stupid grin on Toph’s face.

“You mean Katara’s grabbing the honey?”

Zuko felt himself flush again. “Whatever. I still only have two hands.”

Katara picked up the teapot and walked to the living room, determined not to let Zuko see her blush. Toph begrudgingly got up and went into the kitchen. She grabbed the skirt of Katara’s dress when they crossed paths.

“I thought you were getting the honey.”

Oops. “I’ll go back for it.”

“Then why did I have to get up?”

Toph took Katara’s place next to Zuko as he pulled down three teacups. Katara could hear Toph still whining.

“If you were just gonna put the cups on the counter, why did you need my help?”

“Hands, Toph, hands.”

Toph picked two of the cups up and her mouth fell open. “These are so tiny! You could have gotten all three in your massive hands!”

“They’re pretty delicate. I’d hate to drop one.”

Toph hooked the third cup around two of her fingers and trudged back to the living room. “You’d have to be trying to drop them.”

Katara grinned to herself. She couldn’t believe Zuko had gotten Toph up. She set the teapot down on the table in the living room and went back into the kitchen to get the honey. A thought occurred to her.

“Hey _sugar_ , do you mind grabbing the Zuko?”

A smile worked its way across his face. “Not at all, _honey_.”

Toph scoffed. “Gross.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Zutara week!


	2. Laundry Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As much as she wanted to gripe, Katara knew Zuko had instructed the others to leave their disgusting clothes there instead of trailing mud through the house. She’d even been the one to bring them all a fresh change of clothes. But that didn’t mean they could just forget about their mess and expect her to clean up after them!
> 
> She would, but it was different when it wasn’t expected of her.

Katara stepped into the foyer and abruptly stopped when she saw the assortment of very dirty clothes scattered on the floor. Aang and Toph had created another mud pit while “training” that afternoon. When she sent Sokka to retrieve the pair for lunch, he’d come back muddy as well, claiming he’d been ambushed.

As much as she wanted to gripe, Katara knew Zuko had instructed the others to leave their disgusting clothes there instead of trailing mud through the house. She’d even been the one to bring them all a fresh change of clothes. But that didn’t mean they could just forget about their mess and expect her to clean up after them!

She would, but it was different when it wasn’t expected of her.

Katara sighed and retrieved a basket to put the dirty clothes in. Sokka’s robes went in first. Why he’d been wearing his clothes from home out there was beyond Katara. Granted, she also wore a dress from their tribe, and the beach behind the house was private, but still. It was too risky to be out in their regular clothes while in the Fire Nation. Toph and Aang had also worn clothes from their homes. Katara would have to talk to them about that, and see about getting more fiery-looking attire for all of them.

Toph’s skirt went in next. Katara huffed when she saw the dried mud caked on. Toph was an earthbender for goodness sake, couldn’t she have bent the mud off of them?

Katara heard footsteps behind her and whirled around, ready to lay into whichever of the three it was. It wasn’t any of them though. It was Zuko. He leaned against the doorframe.

“What are you doing?” 

Her question came out rougher than anticipated. It didn’t seem to bother him.

“Trying to get out of playing some game with the others.”

“Trust me, I’d much rather be playing a game than doing this.”

Katara tossed Toph’s skirt into the basket and shifted the basket onto her hip. 

“They can do their own laundry from now on.”

His statement surprised her.

“Their clothes would never be clean,” she replied.

“Their clothes would get clean if they didn’t want to sleep outside.”

Katara adjusted the basket and met his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

Zuko crossed his arms. “Oh, but I would.”

They shared a grin. 

Katara bent down to grab Toph’s shirt. She frowned when she saw a hole had been ripped across the middle. One more thing for her to fix.

“You’re right,” she said, “everyone can do their own laundry.”

“Especially Sokka.”

Zuko’s voice was nasally. Katara turned around and saw Zuko tightly pinching his nose shut with one hand and barely holding onto one of Sokka’s socks with the other.

“I can’t believe you’re touching that.”

Zuko dropped the sock into the basket and flinched as if the sock had shocked him. “I’d heard the jokes, but I had no idea his feet were that bad.”

Katara laughed. “I’m unfortunately used to it by now. But it’s nice to have someone to share the pain with.”

Zuko used Aang’s shirt to pick up the boy’s underwear and tossed both into the basket. “Underwear? Seriously?”

“What? It’s gotta get clean,” Katara shrugged.

“Yeah, but does he have another pair?”

Katara shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it.”

All of the clothes had been picked up. Katara was grateful for the help, and intended on telling Zuko so. She set the basket down to give her hip some rest, but when she looked up, she saw Zuko staring at the basket, a worried look on his face.

“What?”

“There was only one sock.”

“And?”

“Where’s the other one?”

Katara massaged the area where the heavy basket had been sitting. “If it’s here, we’ll smell it. That’s if he even has another one.”

“If he what?” Zuko couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “With feet like that, there needs to be the added buffer of a sock on both feet at all times. We’ll have to buy him a new pair. Or several.”

“We can get Aang some underwear, too,” Katara joked.

“And you guys need some clothes to help you blend in,” Zuko added. 

“Yes! Thank you!” Katara felt extremely validated.

“Want to go tomorrow?”

“It’s a date.”

Zuko looked back to the basket. A date. It was just an expression. People didn’t really go on shopping dates. Did they? 

Too much thinking about the impossible. He braced himself and stuck his hand in the basket.

“What are you doing?” Katara asked.

Zuko fished out the lone sock. “A noble cause for the greater good.” 

In an instant, the sock was incinerated. 

“You’ve earned the right to not do your own laundry,” Katara said as she watched the ashes fall from Zuko’s hand.

“Oh, no, I can do it myself. No bother at all.” 

“You know swimming doesn’t count as washing your clothes, right?” Katara teased.

Zuko was only half offended. “Of course it doesn’t! But do they know that?”

Katara thought about it. “I probably shouldn’t trust them to do their own laundry,” she reluctantly admitted.

“I could help you with it. If you wanted.”

Katara didn’t say anything for a minute. Zuko couldn’t quite pinpoint the expression on her face. He tried to cover his tracks.

“Or we could just show them how to do it.”

“I’d like that,” she finally said. “Thank you.”

She hadn’t ever asked for or expected any help, especially not from the prince. That was the problem, Zuko thought. Katara practically slaved over everyone else while they took turns training Aang and relaxing. She needed time to relax, too. 

Zuko picked up the laundry basket. “Come on, let’s go.”

Katara held the door open for him and followed him inside. 

Zuko set the basket down in the living room. As he did, he heard Katara yelling up the staircase.

“Family meeting, now!”


	3. Candlelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara tells Zuko the legend of Oma and Shu.

Katara squinted in the dim light of the single candle Zuko had lit for her earlier. She was sewing up the rip in Toph’s shirt. They’d already secured Fire Nation clothes, so repairing the green shirt was an act of kindness. It was also a distraction from the fact that Sozin’s comet was getting closer and closer. 

If- no, when they won the war, Toph was going to have clean clothes from her homeland to celebrate in. Clean clothes with no holes other than the ones intentionally put there for her neck and arms.

Katara poked her thumb with the needle and yelped. The candle was almost completely melted, the flame flickering unreliably as it got closer to the pool of melted wax. She didn’t know where another candle was, or where matches were, for that matter. She realized how ignorant that sounded. They were hiding in the home of not only a firebender, but the Firelord himself. There weren’t going to be any matches anywhere.

“Katara?”

She jumped, startled at Zuko’s voice, and pricked her thumb again. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Zuko said sheepishly. “What are you still doing up?”

“I have to fix Toph’s shirt. But I can’t fix the shirt if I can’t see, and I can’t see if the candle goes out, and I don’t know where any other candles are-”

“Hey.” Zuko sat on the floor next to her. “You should probably get some rest.”

Katara set the green shirt in her lap. “I can’t. I can’t sleep. I was even gonna try making some of that tea you gave Toph, but there weren’t any sparking rocks. I’m just so anxious.”

Zuko didn’t have to ask what about.

“Because,” Katara continued her rapid-fire speech, “no matter what happens, everything is going to change. We obviously want things to change for the better, that’s why we’re fighting, but what if we win and things don’t get better?”

Zuko scowled. “I’m worried about that, too.”

Katara’s heart broke a little bit more. “No, not- I wasn’t talking about you. You’ll be great.” 

“Will I, though?”

The childhood trauma was rearing its ugly head. He’d shared a little of his upbringing with Katara, and she’d wept privately when the conversation ended. She’d already forgiven him, but understanding him was different. It was raw. 

“You’re not like him.”

“I don’t ever want to be.”

“You won’t be.”

“How can you say that?” 

Katara fought back an ill-timed smile, remembering a similar line from his character in the awful play they’d seen the day before. “Because you’re so much stronger than you think. Everything he thinks is a weakness are your greatest strengths. You had to completely re-learn how to firebend, and you did it in a matter of days. You’re resilient. And oddly optimistic. Even when the whole world is stacked against you, you don’t stop fighting. That’s not going to change when they stick some crown on your head.” 

Zuko blew air through his nose in a laugh. “Some crown.”

“What? That’s all it is.”

Katara’s naivety was endearing.

“It’s a huge responsibility.”

“Okay. You’re a responsible person. You help cook, and do laundry, and you make sure the others don’t blow our money on stupid stuff.”

“Being self-sufficient isn’t the same as knowing how to run the most-hated country in the world.”

“And are you running it all by yourself?”

“Yes!”

Katara raised her eyebrows. “Really. No generals, or commanders, or admirals, or captains, or advisors, or-”

“I get it,” Zuko cut her off. “I’ll have a ton of experienced soldiers and advisors. I just have to figure out which of them I can trust.”

“No Firelady?”

Their eyes met in the flickering embers.

“Nope,” Zuko swallowed thickly. “Not for now.”

“Hmm. Well, when you’re ready, pick a good one.”

The candle went out then. Katara flashed back to the Cave of Two Lovers in Omashu, when the torch had burned out. She sourly remembered Aang’s repeat-performance the night before. Kissing her like that. He’d avoided her all day, and she was glad about it. She needed space.

“I guess I’m done for the night,” she said softly.

A flame sprung to life in Zuko’s palm. In the new light, they realized neither of them had broken eye contact during the darkness. “You don’t have to be.”

A new memory came to Katara’s mind, oh-so-similar to her cave experience in Omashu, but surrounded by different crystals and trapped with a different boy. Man, she corrected in her mind. Aang was a boy. The future Firelord staring into her soul was a man.

She wondered what it would have been like to be trapped in the Cave of Two Lovers with him.

Katara cleared her throat and tried to push the thought out of her mind. It wasn’t leaving. She needed a distraction. She picked up Toph’s shirt and the needle. “Do you know how the city of Omashu was created?”

“It was the merging of two cities after a war,” Zuko tactfully answered.

“No,” Katara was frustrated. “I mean, technically yes, but do you know the story behind it?”

Zuko stretched one leg and bent the other, draping his free arm over his bent knee. “Tell it to me.”

Katara pulled the needle through the shirt and recalled the story from the wall of the cave. “Long ago, two villages separated by a mountain range had an ongoing war. A man from one of the cities fell in love with a woman from the other. But because their homes were enemies, they couldn’t be together. At least, not publicly. They had to figure out a way to see each other in secret. After learning from the badger-moles, they became the first earthbenders. The lovers were able to use their bending to their advantage. They built an elaborate system of tunnels throughout the mountain. If anyone tried to follow them, they’d get lost in the maze or trapped in the rubble.”

“Did anyone ever try to follow them?”

Katara shrugged. “I don’t know. When we were there, we didn’t see any skeletons, but they may very well have been crushed under rocks or buried under the earth.”

“You’ve been in there?” 

“Mhm,” Katara said. “We traveled through Omashu a few times. But only through the mountains once.”

“How did you get through?”

“We had singing tour guides. And when we did get stuck, some badger-moles showed up, and they got most of the group out of the cave.” She decided to pick and choose details. “Aang and I had gotten separated from them, but there were these beautiful crystals lining the inside of the cave. We followed them out.”

Her reference wasn’t lost on Zuko. If anything, it had a deeper meaning to him than Katara could possibly know. The crystal catacombs had been a crossroads for him personally. He’d made the wrong choice at the time, and he knew it, but the memory of those crystals, the memory of her, ultimately led him out of the metaphorical cave he’d been stuck in for so long. He needed to change the subject before he thought too much into it.

“Singing tour guides?”

“Yes, pay attention,” Katara teased.

“What did they sing?”

“Everything. I’m not kidding, the one guy would narrate whatever was going on and sing about it. That’s how we found out about the cave. He sang us the song of the legend.”

“There’s a song about this, and you were just going to tell me the story?”

Katara blushed. “Yeah?”

“Now I’ve got to hear it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s just me.” 

Yeah. She was painfully aware of that.

Katara sighed, and continued stitching as she sang the song from memory.

_Two lovers forbidden from one another_

_A war divides their people_

It was a familiar story, and not just because she knew the song and had read the story painted above the graves of the lovers. She realized as she sang, that if anything ever became of her and Zuko, it could be their story. But nothing was going to happen.

_And a mountain divides them apart_

_Built a path to be together_

A mountain of hatred and disgust had separated them. He’d been the one to start forging the path, coming to the team and apologizing and wanting so badly to be accepted. With her forgiveness, she’d started clearing the path from her side of the mountain. She felt his eyes burning into her.

“What’s next?” Zuko asked.

Katara grinned. “Well, the tour guide was a peculiar man, and he never could remember the next few lines.”

Zuko’s face fell. “You’re kidding.”

Katara jumped back in. “But then it goes…”

_Secret tunnel, secret tunnel Through the mountain Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel_

Zuko wasn’t impressed. “That’s it?”

Katara rolled her eyes. “It’s more impressive and fun when you don’t have to sing it so quietly. And there’s at least one other verse, but you’ll have to forgive me, it’s been a while since I last heard it.” 

“Great song.” Katara’s eyes darted to him.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“No! No,” Zuko quickly reassured her, “it’s short and simple. Really effective. It tells the whole story and is catchy.”

“Not the whole story,” Katara corrected him.

“Go on,” Zuko encouraged, rolling the flame between his fingers. “Please.”

“One day, the man didn’t show up to meet his lover.”

“Jerk.”

“He died in the war between their villages.”

Zuko’s eyes widened and the flame stilled. “Not a jerk. That’s really rough.”

“The woman,” Katara continued, “was grief-stricken. She displayed her earthbending power to everyone. They’d never seen anything like it, and they were terrified. She could have destroyed both cities. Instead, she ended the war. The villages worked together to build a new city, where they vowed to live peacefully amongst each other.”

“Omashu,” Zuko picked up.

“Exactly. Named so because her name was Oma, and her fallen lover’s name was Shu.”

They sat in the quiet for a moment. Katara had finished sewing Toph’s shirt as she sang. It sat in her lap, forgotten.

“Is that it?” Zuko asked.

“There was this inscription,” Katara said slowly, “in the tomb of the lovers. Above a painting of them kissing. It’s actually how we found the crystals.”

“What did it say?”

Katara’s heart pounded in her chest. “Love is brightest in the dark.”

The flame in Zuko’s hand extinguished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SECRET TUNNEL


	4. Extra Effort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Avatar is down a man. Zuko does his best to fill the emptiness in their group.

Aang was gone.

Zuko couldn’t help but feel a little angry. They’d spent so long training Aang and trying to accommodate him and walking on eggshells so they didn’t trigger an emotional outburst, and the kid left anyway without an explanation.

More than angry, Zuko felt clueless. He was just learning how he fit into the group dynamic, and finally felt like they had a real shot at winning. With an Aang-shaped hole in the team, Zuko found himself trying to fill the void for everyone else.

Sokka hid his thoughts and emotions behind terrible jokes, but even the jokes decreased until they ceased. 

That was Zuko’s first mission: make Sokka laugh.

Dinner seemed like the perfect time to try. They ate sticky rice, again, trying to finish off the groceries they had before buying any more. Or before the comet. Whichever came first.

“This is delicious,” Zuko said toward the end of the meal.

“It’s the same as it was last night. And the night before,” Toph mushed a grain of rice between her fingers.

“It was great both of those times, too. Great food and great friends make for a _rice_ night.”

Toph snorted. “Wooooow. Great joke, _Dad_.”

Zuko could hear Katara chuckle, and he wanted to think of something to shoot back at Toph, but he was watching Sokka. The gears were turning in Sokka’s brain. Zuko silently pleaded with Sokka to pick up on the pun. It was embarrassing to make such an awful joke, but his friend needed it. Truth be told, it was hard coming up with puns, and Zuko didn’t know if he’d be able to make another one.

And there it was. Sokka’s lips curled up. 

“Y’know, I appreciate the effort, but you should leave the jokes to the comedy pros. Your joke just lacked a certain _fire_.”

It was hardly a pun, but Zuko laughed at it. One down, two to go.

Toph was a bit more difficult. She didn’t want to bond over jokes or trauma, and Zuko was at a loss. He’d never been a 13-year-old girl, and the 13-year-old girls he’d known weren’t exactly normal by any standard. Then it dawned on him. Toph and Aang played together. She was growing up, but still a kid at heart. She needed some fun before the world possibly came crashing down.

The next morning, Zuko sat down next to Toph on the couch in the living room. He waited for her to say something, anything, but she was content to sit in silence. Finally she turned her head to him.

“Yes?”

“You. Me. Field trip. Now.”

Zuko didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

They spent the whole day together, slinging mud and fire and scaring people on the public beach. They wreaked absolute havoc. It was the most fun he’d had in a very long time.

He carried her to the house on his back, pretending to buck her off every few feet. When they made it back, Katara stood on the porch, looking Zuko up and down. He’d abandoned his shirt hours prior after a particularly messy mud ball had nailed him in the back. The way he carried Toph made it look like he had two heads.

That’s not what Katara was looking at. She tried her hardest to keep her eyes focused on the head sprouting out of Zuko’s shoulder, but that shoulder was connected to an extremely well-defined torso, and that torso was connected to the flexed arm muscles hooked around Toph’s legs.

She was also looking at the mud caked on them from head to toe. 

“We’ll wash them,” Zuko promised before Katara could even say a word.

Katara responded by sneak attacking them with jets of water. Toph shrieked and clung to Zuko, yelling at Katara, but she was laughing nonetheless. 

Katara smiled. “Bend off the rest of that mud and go get changed. Dinner’s almost ready.” She went back inside.

Toph obliged. When they got to the door, Toph grabbed his arm.

“Thanks for today,” she said earnestly.

Zuko ruffled her hair. “Anytime.”

She socked him in the arm and went to go dry off. Zuko rubbed the budding sore spot on his arm. 

Two down. One to go.

Katara was the hardest one to figure out. Zuko didn’t know much about her relationship with Aang, other than the fact that the poor kid seemed to be in love with her, and it wasn’t reciprocated.

He knew they practiced waterbending together, and that was about it. Zuko couldn’t waterbend. What was he supposed to do?

After they’d all changed into their sleep clothes, Katara declared a “family game night,” and Zuko finally had to play the game he’d previously successfully avoided. It turned out to be a long but fun game; there were numbered cards, and eight different levels, and which level you were on determined which cards you’d try to accumulate. 

He teamed up with Toph and would whisper what cards they had to her. She was in charge of running strategy. They won the first four rounds.

When the fifth round was almost over, the teapot whistled. Katara fixed cups for everyone while Toph played cards at random and somehow still beat Sokka. 

“Hey sugar, do you mind grabbing the Zuko?” Katara called from the kitchen. 

Sokka laughed. “Ha! You said-”

Zuko stood and stretched. “Not at all, honey, but while you’re over there, will you get the Katara?”

Sokka blinked, confused. “Wait. I don’t get it.”

“They’re just being weird,” Toph said as she laid down yet another card Sokka didn’t need.

“You got that right.” Sokka forgot all about the weirdlings in the kitchen as he studied his cards.

Said weirdlings began preparing four teacups of a chai blend Katara had picked out on their shopping date. “I’ve never had it, but it smells nice,” she’d said.

There were no awkward brush-ups this time as they bustled around the kitchen. The brush-ups were bountiful, but intentional. Playful even. Toph was getting a headache from all of the internal noise they didn’t know they were making. Stupid heartbeats.

Zuko picked up two of the teacups and brought them to Toph and Sokka, humming without realizing it. When he extended the teacup to Sokka, their eyes met, and something seemed to click in Sokka’s head.

“No!” He blurted.

Zuko had no idea what Sokka was talking about. No, he didn’t like chai tea? Or tea in general? Or worse, he’d seen straight through Zuko’s facade and knew how he felt about Katara and didn’t approve?

“Not that stupid song again!”

“You’re not a fan of the tale of Omashu?” Zuko asked.

Sokka sipped his tea. “Been there, done that with the help of some really unhelpful singing nomads. Probably won’t do it again, especially not with those guys.”

“I’m missing something here,” Toph interrupted. “There’s a whole song about Omashu?”

“It’s about the woman who created Omashu and her secret lover,” Katara explained, appearing in the living room with two more teacups. “You live in the Earth Kingdom and don’t know that song?”

“I live in the upper crust of the Earth Kingdom. The people I spent most of my time with didn’t exactly sit around and sing folksy tunes. Neither did any of the wrestlers I knocked into the ground.” Toph smiled, fond of her wrestling memories. “So what’s with the love song, Sparky?”

“It’s stuck in my head,” Zuko admitted. “And it’s kind of annoying.”

“Try being stuck in a mountain for hours with a guy who won’t quit singing it,” Sokka said.

After one cup of tea, Sokka was ready for bed. 

“I’m gonna lay down, too,” Toph said, citing her headache as an excuse to leisurely make her way out of the room.

That left Zuko and Katara sitting on the living room floor with their teacups and a whole deck of cards. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

Katara met Zuko’s eyes over her teacup and nodded. “Mhm.”

“What do you need right now?”

Katara swallowed the chai and set her cup on the table. “I’m not following you.”

“You know, with Aang being gone and all. What do you need?”

Katara’s mind raced. What did she need? She needed to know that everything was going to be okay, that Aang was going to come back like he always did and win the war. That the only things to change on a personal level would be the things she wanted to change. That she’d be able to do the things she wanted to do. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do. All she did know was who she wanted to do those things with, and he was sitting right there, patiently waiting on her reply.

“To talk,” is what she landed on. “About Aang.”

She told Zuko everything. How she was aware of Aang’s feelings for her, and pretending they weren’t there wouldn’t make them go away. About their kisses. What had happened when they went to the play. The immense amount of pressure she felt to play along for now because of the circumstances, and how guilty she felt because she knew she was stringing him along and how he’d be heartbroken after the war.

How she should be grateful that someone loved her so dearly. How her heart had broken for Sokka when Yue sacrificed herself, and how she’d been able to hear him cry for weeks when he thought everyone was asleep. How all signs pointed to her accepting the love that was being offered to her, and how selfish she felt for wanting to reject it.

And Zuko just listened. He took in every word she said, trying to go beyond just understanding her feelings and actually feeling them. When she looked like she was about to go over the edge, he pulled her into a tight hug.

When she seemed to calm down, he whispered, “I think he’ll get over it.”

Katara pulled back from the hug but stayed firmly tucked under his arm. “What makes you say that?”

Zuko lightly traced meaningless shapes across her shoulder. “People change. The person you’re in love with at thirteen probably isn’t the person you’ll be in love with when you hit seventeen. There may be a part of him that always loves you, but he’ll meet new people, and will probably love someone else.”

She laid her head on his bare shoulder and turned into his side. “You always know what to do.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

“Yeah. But when it counts, you do. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“The extra effort. Joking around with Sokka, making sure he washes his socks. And Toph.”

“What about Toph?”

Toph tossed and turned in the tent she’d made in her bedroom. The thundering heartbeats from the other room still made their way to her body and pounded her head. She willed herself to relax, to focus on anything but the way the floor thumped. It didn’t work.

Well. The other two made this problem, so they were going to fix it.

Toph jumped up and walked toward the living room. She wasn’t sure of what she was going to say. 

Over the steady thud of heartbeats, Toph could hear their low conversation.

“-really good with her,” Katara was saying, “in a way that I’m not. I try, and we do have fun together, but we also fight a lot. I’ve watched her wrestle grown men and win, and pull scams on the seediest lowlifes, and even taken her to a spa in Ba Sing Se, but I’ve never seen a smile like the one she had when you guys came back today.”

They were talking about her. Toph stood in the darkness of the hallway to continue listening.

She heard Zuko’s voice next. “Are you jealous?”

“A little. I was so good with all of the kids at home, but haven’t had the same luck with Toph. She’s older than the kids I’m talking about, but that should make it easier.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You do a great job with her.”

“It doesn’t feel like I do. I was so excited to have another girl in the group, and don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade her for the world, but we’re just not that similar.”

“You know why she bucks against you, right?”

Ooh. A psychoanalysis. Toph’s interest was officially piqued.

“Why?” She heard Katara ask.

“When you grow up in a world like Toph and I did, you learn some things quickly. Playing is meant to be more structured than fun. You’re loved and adored until you do something to embarrass your family, and maybe, maybe you’ll get that love and adoration back if you earn it. If you’re having a bad day and actually get to talk about it, you might get reprimanded for having a disrespectful tone, even if you’re not talking about the person you’re talking to. We had to learn how to navigate formalities and try to be as whole as we could while fitting into the roles we were boxed into at birth.”

“I’m not boxing her, am I?”

“No,” Zuko reassured Katara, “but she’s boxing you. You guys came out of nowhere and gave her an out from that world. It was freedom. But, with the new world came new rules. Things like, you can’t only look out for yourself because now there are people who care about you beyond what you can do for them, and they’re depending on you. And, I mean this in the nicest way possible Katara, you’re a walking rule book.”

“I am not!”

“Really. So the next time she comes back to the house covered in mud, it’s okay for her to track it inside?”

“That was _your_ rule, Zuko.”

“Yeah, because I knew you’d be the one scrubbing up all the mud after everyone else went to sleep. That’s what you do. You’re a fixer. If there’s a problem, or a mess, or any sort of conflict, you add it to your to-do list.”

“Is taking care of people a bad thing?”

“No. Being a fixer isn’t a bad thing. But maybe Toph doesn’t need you to fix her. Maybe she just needs to be loved.”

“I do love her. I love all of you. That’s why I do the fixing. That’s my way of saying I love you without having to actually say it.”

Toph had no idea that’s why Katara was so hard on them. It was a funny way to show love.

“Then don’t stop. Keep saying I love you. Just remember to open your ears, because you might miss her saying it back. She’d kill me if she knew I told you this, but she wouldn’t stop talking about you today. I think she kind of sees you as a motherly figure.”

“I don’t know how to be a mother.”

Katara didn’t sound angry or hurt at the revelation. She sounded lost.

“But you’re doing it anyway. It’s natural for you.”

They didn’t speak for a while. Then, Zuko’s voice came back.

“She must have been an amazing woman to raise you so well in the short time you had together.”

Katara didn’t say anything.

“We’re lucky to have you. Toph’s lucky to have you.” Awkward pause. “And one day, your kids will be lucky to have you.”

“If they’re not, I’m bringing them to the palace.”

“Only for a visit.”

“No, no. They’ll be yours.” 

Katara seemed to realize what she’d implied. Toph clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a snicker.

“I mean, not like, your kids. Just to get away from me. You’re good with kids. That’s what I meant.”

Toph had to do something before her head exploded. If Katara wanted to be a fixer so badly, fine, she could fix this. She walked into the living room, hands rubbing her temples.

“Toph!” Katara said.

Toph didn’t go through the pomp and circumstance of greetings. “My head hurts. Can you make it better?”

Katara tapped the floor next to her, sending vibrations to Toph’s feet. “Come here.”

Toph sat down next to Katara and waited for her to pull out the water. She never did.

“Where does your head hurt?”

Toph was tempted to tell them her head was throbbing because of the spiking heartbeats of the morons in the room. “Kind of everywhere. Mostly in the back. But also toward the top.”

Katara put a hand on Toph’s shoulder and guided her to lay her head down on Katara’s lap. The older girl ran her fingers through the younger’s hair and massaged her scalp.

“Have you been sleeping well?” Zuko asked.

“Other than tonight.”

“I figured you’d be exhausted after your busy day,” Katara said.

“I am. But it’s too loud to sleep.”

“I’m sorry if we kept you up. We’ll be quieter next time,” Zuko promised.

Toph snorted. “It wasn’t your voices.”

Within minutes, Katara had lulled her to sleep. Shortly after, still nestled into Zuko’s warmth and security, she dozed off as well.

Zuko couldn’t help but smile contentedly at the sleeping girls. By coming in and asking for her help, Toph had told Katara she loved her. He knew she’d heard it that time. 

What he didn’t know, though, is that the soft kiss to the top of Katara’s head woke her up just enough for her to hear his whispered “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, that’s basically what all five chapters are gonna be like. Domestic fluff. Gotta love it.


End file.
